FUORISALONE 2018

Walking through the streets of Milan during Milan Design Week is fascinating. The city is literally taken by interior design. Designers, decorators, students, journalist, photographers, people from around the world gather once a year in the Italian design capital looking for the latest interior design trends. The whole city is involved. Old industrial abandoned buildings, deconsecrated churches, extraordinary interior courtyards, modern lofts and even the streets are transformed into galleries.

During this week Milan is divided into design districts: Tortona, Brera, Lambrate, Ventura, Centro/San Babila, Montenapoleone, Romana, 5 Vie, S. Ambroggio, Isola, Porta Venezia and Sarpi/Fabbrica del Vapore.  You can walk along these districts enjoying art, design and new proposals……and off course Italian street food, because each district has his food truck zone.

The first thing you need to know is how to survive the whole week. Four essentials are recommended: comfortable shoes, hydration, specific downloaded apps and a backpack. You must have your hands free to feel and touch as much as you can, because you will live a multi sensorial experience such as a sound-generating glass or interacting with giant wood puppets, both in abandoned warehouses under the Milan Central Station, or maybe enjoy a taste of miniature futuristic food dishes served as an artwork designed by a creative chef in an loft still under construction.

Even though this type of event is to highlight and promote new products and designers there is always a place for a man and its tradition. This year, in the elegant halls of Villa Mozart at Porta Venezia District we can enjoy an interesting project where thirteen international artisans were selected to participate creating artistic pieces joining their roots, craftmanship, emotions and new design. In Sarpi/Fabbrica del Vapore District inside the old train factory, there is the collective exhibition of a group of “makers/artists” who like to call themselves “independent design makers” because they refuse to design for the mass media, but they are not only artisans, they combine traditional manual skills with digital technology to create unique pieces or at least limited series. And finally, we find in an under construction building a representative group of students from different design institutes from north Europe and Mexico with their artisanal proposals where recycling is the future for nature, man and its traditions.

Similar to the exhibitions we have mentioned above there is a lot more to see in Milan. The city becomes a big scenario for great performances, so if you are a design addict and an art lover, include the Milan Design Week in your next trip to Italy, …… and don’t forget to come prepared.